"No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to Congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, [the second] amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both."
-- William Rawle, A View of the Constitution, 125-6 (2nd ed. 1829)
This past legislative session was not very good for gun owners. Several anti-gun bills passed, while only one significant pro-gun-rights bill (Sen. Madsen’s "Katrina" bill) passed, and it passed in watered-down form. A major pro-gun-rights bill (SB 67, Sen. Mark Madsen’s parking lot bill) was killed in the House of Representatives, and another good bill (HB 473, Rep. Curt Oda’s open-carry bill) was hijacked in the House at the last minute and turned into an anti-gun bill (which died thanks to the efforts of Sen. Mike Waddoups, aided by your last-minute phone calls).
Rep. Steve Urquhart (chairman of the House Rules Committee) played, in our view, a prominent anti-gun-rights role in both of these episodes. GOUtah! Policy Director Charles Hardy contacted Rep. Urquhart last week and asked for an explanation. Here’s what Rep. Urquhart wrote:
Charles,
Thank you for your involvement in the legislative process and for your work on behalf of Second Amendment rights.
In 2004, I was the House sponsor of SB 48, which clarified that guns can be carried on college campuses. Since then, the University of Utah threatened prosecution of a student whose gun was visible. To address that issue, Rep. Curt Oda ran HB 473. Speaker Curtis and President Valentine informed me that the bill, as originally drafted, would not make it through the process. Therefore, pursuant to their direction, I ran an amendment to clarify that unintentional display of a firearm on a campus is not a crime.
You also asked me why the House Judiciary Committee heard Sen. Mark Madsen’s SB 67. As is his prerogative, that is where Speaker Curtis directed that it go.
If you have further questions, let me know.
Steve Urquhart
GOUtah! thoroughly analyzed the Urquhart amendment to HB 473 in Alert #292. As you may recall, this amendment actually would have made it a crime for a permit-holder to openly carry a firearm on any university campus, and would have made it a crime for a permit-holder to openly carry a firearm within 1,000 feet of ANY public or private day-care facility, elementary school, middle school, high school, vocational school, college, or university in the state, and would have made it a crime to carry a concealed firearm in any of these locations if the firearm is concealed in a purse, briefcase, or backpack. As far as we can tell, none of these activities are illegal under the current law, but under the Urquhart amendment they would have become illegal. Thus, the Urquhart amendment would have imposed all sorts of new restrictions on both open and concealed carry that aren’t in the current code. So Rep. Urquhart’s description of his own amendment as being pro-gun-rights is pure baloney, in our opinion.
Thanks to your e-mails and phone calls during the final days of the session, Urquhart re-wrote his amendment and eliminated some (though not all) of the problems with it. But that’s not the point. The point is that his original amendment was a horrible piece of anti-gun garbage, and we shouldn’t have to be the ones to point out all the problems with such an amendment. If Rep. Urquhart really understood anything at all about the Second Amendment, he wouldn’t have tried to foist such a piece of junk on us in the first place.
But what’s really interesting is that Rep. Urquhart now tells us that House Speaker Greg Curtis and Senate President John Valentine instructed him to sponsor this anti-gun amendment. Furthermore, although Rep. Urquhart, as Chairman of the Rules Committee, essentially has power to decide where to assign any given bill, he says that Speaker Curtis instructed him to send SB 67 (the parking lot bill) to the anti-gun House Judiciary Committee (where everyone knew it would be killed) instead of sending it to the House Law Enforcement Committee (the normal place for gun bills to go, where it would have passed) or the House Labor and Commerce Committee (where it would probably also have passed).
Thus, in essence, Rep. Urquhart is saying that House Speaker Curtis instructed him to kill a very good pro-gun bill (SB 67) and that both Speaker Curtis and Senate President Valentine instructed him to turn another good bill (HB 473) into a rabidly anti-gun bill. Of course, if Rep. Urquhart actually believed in gun rights, he could have ignored these instructions. The House Speaker and the Senate President have no formal power to tell Rep. Urquhart what to do. He could have thumbed his nose at them, but he didn’t. He caved.
However, at least the cat is now out of the bag. If Rep. Urquhart’s allegations are true, it appears that House Speaker Curtis and Senate President Valentine were key opponents of the Second Amendment during the recent legislative session.
We have not yet heard a response from either Speaker Curtis or Senate President Valentine to these accusations, so for the time being we are assuming that they're true. Unfortunately, neither Speaker Curtis nor Senate President Valentine is being challenged from within their own party at the coming county conventions. However, we will see what can be done to create political pain for them during the coming election cycle.
In the meantime, several incumbents who have demonstrated a commitment to protect the Second Amendment during the recent legislative session are being challenged from within their own party by candidates who are not so friendly to our cause. We urge you to help these incumbents so that they can win at their conventions and get on the ballot for the general election.
Note: GOUtah! does not endorse any political party, nor do we endorse politicians. We do, however, believe that it's important to help support individual elected officials (regardless of party affiliation) who, through their recent actions, have helped protect the right to keep and bear arms.
If you live in Salt Lake, Davis, or Utah counties, please contact one or more of the following incumbents who are being challenged from within their own party, and thank them for supporting the Second Amendment during the recent legislative session and ask them what you can do to help their campaigns prior to the coming county conventions.
If you live in Utah County, please contact Sen. Mark Madsen at http://www.votemadsen.com and ask him what you can do to help his campaign prior to the upcoming Utah County GOP Convention this Saturday, April 26th.
If you live in Utah County, please contact Rep. Stephen Sandstrom at http://www.stephenericsandstrom.com and ask him what you can do to help his campaign.
If you live in Davis County, please contact Rep. Curt Oda at (801)773-9796 and ask him what you can do to help his campaign prior to the upcoming Davis County GOP Convention.
If you live in Salt Lake County, please contact Sen. Mike Waddoups at (801)967-0225 and ask him what you can do to help his campaign prior to the Salt Lake County Convention on May 3rd.
On 4 April, 2008 our friends at Gun Owners of America (GOA) released the following email alert about a proposed U.S. Postal Service (USPS) rule that would restrict the shipment of inert munitions through the mail.
The Post Office is wading into the gun control debate.
That's right, the U.S. Postal Service is trying to keep people from shipping replica or inert munitions through the mail.
They have no authority in the law, since Congress has kept for itself the power to decide what can and cannot be shipped. But the Post Office is trying to say that replica or inert munitions are hazardous!
Gun Owners of America's attorneys just found out about this outrageous proposal which was issued by the Post Office. Although the deadline for postmarking is Monday, April 7, our attorneys say that e-mails and letters should be sent anyway.
If you are a re-enactor or collector of replica or inert munitions, you are in the Post Office crosshairs. If you are not directly involved in this, you should still be outraged that a bunch of bureaucrats are trying to further restrict Second Amendment activity.
By the way, there is one interesting dimension to all of this: Canada wants the US to help shut off shipment of these items into Canada. So it looks like our bureaucrats are eager to appease other governments by changing our laws to make them as bad as our neighbors'.
You can read the Postal Service proposed regulations here.
You can read GOA's comments to the Postal Service here.
TITLE: 73 Fed. Reg. 12321: New Standards Prohibit the Mailing of Replica or Inert Munitions
On 11 April, 2008 our friends at Gun Owners of America (GOA) released the following email alert about the status of the proposed U.S. National Parks Service (USNPS) firearms amendment that would allow you to carry a self-defense weapon in our national parks. Included in this alert is information on some of the other issues before congress.
Gun Owners of America alerted you on Tuesday to the looming battle over Senate legislation that will determine whether or not you will be able to carry a gun on lands controlled by the National Park Service.
The showdown has been postponed until later, as Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma (who had planned to offer the pro-gun amendment) determined he didn't have enough votes. Senator Coburn does plan to find another vehicle to offer his amendment at a later date. So please stay tuned.
In other news, here's an update on what else is happening on Capitol Hill.
Nickelodeon has contacted Gun Owners of America and offered us a wonderful opportunity to get out the pro-gun message to young people.
They want some teenagers (between 11-15 years of age) to appear on the May 13 taping of Nick News which will run later that month. Specifically, they would like to interview kids from all over the nation:
They need about ten kids. In some cases, Nickelodeon will fly a team out to your home to film your kids taking target practice, answering questions, etc. In some cases, they will fly your child (along with one parent) for an all-expenses paid trip to New York on May 12, for the taping which will occur the following day.
No doubt, they will probably have kids who tout the anti-gun position. But if you think you have a well-spoken teen who can handle this challenge, please contact Gun Owners of America at goamail@gunowners.org or at 703-321-8585.
The Associated Press posted an article, "Wal-Mart Toughens Gun Policies", on 14 April, 2008 that describes Wal-Mart's entry into gun control. Wal-Mart will implement its own permanent database of firearms purchases and linking it to a database of firearms used in crimes. They also will retain recorded images of all firearms sales for the use of law enforcement to view them later as part of an investigation.
The Salt Lake Tribune has again begun pounding its anti-gun drum. In two editorials, "Assault rifles: Cops find themselves outgunned" on 15 April and "Loose Cannon: Congressman's gun bill misses the mark" on 19 April, they attack what they perceive to be inadequate gun-control today.
In the first editorial, they decry "the sale of high-velocity, military-style, semi-automatic weapons", which they call "assault weapons", as a grave threat to law enforcement officers. They claim, quite erroneously, that these LEO's "armed only with handguns, are finding themselves overmatched." As is expected from hoplophobes, they call these semi-automatic weapons "automatic weapons" later on in the editorial to fan the flames of hysteria. They further bemoan the expiration of the federal assault weapons ban in 2004 while describing it as "not more effective" due to the nefarious efforts of the NRA and its allies. Effective as what they do not explain.
In the second editorial, they excoriate U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon for his attempt to pass legislation that would require states to recognise CCW permits issued by other states. How this legislation would diminish "the right of a state to safeguard its citizens" The Trib does not explain; they merely make the statement as if it were true.
Of course, the root of this evil are the "permits issued by jurisdictions that toss them around like confetti, littering the streets with handguns. States like Utah." They do not explain how Utah's CCW permitting process has caused any problems in Utah but it must be wrong.
Keep watching these folks as the presidential campaign develops. They certainly will be backing the staunchest gun-control candidate that they can find.
"Our founding fathers created many laws based on common decency and common sense. So let's set aside the mountain of evidence that proves promiscuous gun laws produce a dangerous and violent America, and simply address the gun issue by applying common decency and common sense.
We have created a society where handguns are as common as Coca-Cola, where thousands wander the streets with concealed weapons willing to shoot to kill and committed to shoot first and ask questions later, where bullets that explode on contact and literally blow up the victim are legal, and where assault weapons capable of killing an entire platoon are readily available.
Can anyone in their wildest imagination believe that the founding fathers had this decadence in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment? Were they willing to sacrifice the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of countless thousands of victims for the unlimited right to bear arms for a small number who disdain the discipline of a militia (National Guard)?
What is there to debate? Common decency and common sense demand the right to control deadly weapons."
-- Ron Molen, in a letter printed in The Salt Lake Tribune, 4 April 2008.
"Our founding fathers created many laws based on common decency and common sense. So let's set aside the mountain of evidence that proves promiscuous gun laws produce a dangerous and violent America, and simply address the gun issue by applying common decency and common sense.
We have created a society where handguns are as common as Coca-Cola, where thousands wander the streets with concealed weapons willing to shoot to kill and committed to shoot first and ask questions later, where bullets that explode on contact and literally blow up the victim are legal, and where assault weapons capable of killing an entire platoon are readily available.
Can anyone in their wildest imagination believe that the founding fathers had this decadence in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment? Were they willing to sacrifice the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of countless thousands of victims for the unlimited right to bear arms for a small number who disdain the discipline of a militia (National Guard)?
What is there to debate? Common decency and common sense demand the right to control deadly weapons."
-- Nicholas Bernard, in a letter printed in The Salt Lake Tribune, 9 April 2008.
"Nicholas Bernard writes that Ron Molen's pro-gun-control April 4 letter made him 'laugh uncontrollably' ('Gun notions half-cocked,' Forum, April 9). Then he chides Molen for basing his knowledge of guns and ammo on 'a Jerry Bruckheimer film.'
In the interest of civil discourse (does that even exist anymore?), Bernard should be informed of Ron and Norma Molen's experience with gun violence. It started with the death of their youngest son, Steven, in 1992. A 28-year-old man shot Steven point-blank inside a dorm room at Indiana University. It took five days for their son to die. The Molens became committed advocates of gun control - especially of weapons that exist for no other purpose than to kill human beings.
Is there room for people like Nicholas Bernard and Ron Molen to disagree? Absolutely. This is America. But for Bernard to characterize Molen's opinion as a joke, founded on no personal experience or research, is just wrong. I'm sure Bernard had no idea of the Molens' tragedy, and I hope this letter encourages him to consider real people and their real lives before again launching such an ill-informed attack."
-- Holly Mullen, in a letter printed in The Salt Lake Tribune, 14 April 2008.
"Ron Molen says he wants to use common decency and common sense in his letter, 'The founders and guns' (Forum, April 4); however, all we are treated to is sensationalism and fear mongering.
The same need for self-defense that existed in the time of the founders exists now. From the beginning of time, self-defense has been a basic human right. We don't have to believe people who constantly attack those who take upon themselves the responsibility for their own self-defense.
I stand with George Washington: 'The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that is good.' That's the 'common sense and common decency' that the founders had in mind."
-- Craig Nytch, in a letter printed in The Salt Lake Tribune, 17 April 2008.
"The editorial 'Assault rifles: Cops find themselves outgunned' (Tribune, April 14) suggested that we need a renewed ban on 'assault' weapons. This is another example of ineffective proposals to solve America's gun violence 'problem' by people who know little about guns and even less about the nature of criminals.
For example, in the original 'assault weapon' ban, things such as pistol grips, flash suppressors and bayonet lugs counted toward banning particular guns. The editorial used terms like 'high velocity' and 'military style.' These things have nothing to do with how dangerous a gun is, yet they continue to be the inflammatory rhetoric of gun control advocates.
The man who killed Roosevelt Police Chief Cecil Gurr with an assault rifle was a parole violator. As such, he was already prohibited from possessing any gun. Did that prevent him from acquiring and using one? Criminals do not obey gun laws. Such laws only limit the options of ordinary citizens who legitimately exercise their freedom to own and use guns for lawful purposes, including self-defense.
The solution to gun violence in America lies in the consistent enforcement of the laws that we already have."
-- Jim Bryant, in a letter printed in The Salt Lake Tribune, 20 April 2008.
That concludes the GOUtah! Political and Legislative Alert #298 for 22 April, 2008. We hope this information will be of assistance to you in defending your firearms rights.
Remember that getting this information is meaningless unless You Act On It Today. If you just read it and dump it in the trash, your gun rights, and the gun rights of future generations go in the trash with it. Get involved, get active and get vocal!
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